A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball (45 page)

On all sides there was tremendous good faith shown in the decision to be part of the Heat’s next chapter. Maybe I would have been able to savor the experience of the first games more if I hadn’t been spreading my time between the two courts: the one where basketball was played and the one where the verdict would come down for custody.

The only address I had in these months was in whatever mode of transportation I had to take to make it to games by tip-off and in my seat in court during trial. There were charter flights, Town Cars, missed practices, crazy sprints out of basketball arenas to make it to airports in time to get to the next stop.

No other term can be better used to describe the trial in which I fought for my boys’ lives than
drama-trauma.
The court-appointed expert, on the one hand, testified that Siohvaughn had demonstrated a pattern of alienation of the kids from me. On the other hand, the expert’s recommendation was that joint custody be granted. If that was not possible, the next recommendation was to give Siohvaughn sole custody—even though the expert also worried that the alienation was severe and could require intervention.

I was crushed. We all were. After everything that other judges had worried about as to the safety and welfare of the boys, I had never felt so much at the mercy of anyone as I did of the judge who would ultimately make the decision. In hindsight, I knew that because the expert had interviewed my ex before me, she naturally would have been predisposed not to see my side. Besides the general presumption that mothers are better suited to be caregivers to children, Siohvaughn had a very persuasive personality. My status as a well-known NBA player was also not going to help me, especially given the various rumors that she had worked so hard to get out there. Then there was the obvious: Siohvaughn was a full-time stay-at-home mother and I had a jam-packed schedule. Her lawyers had bombarded the court with examples of my limited time. We had countered with a proposed schedule and a support system that was in place to give me more time with my kids than most single working parents have.

The last time I had felt at the mercy of a court of law anywhere close to this was when my mother turned herself in. Those memories resurfaced over the next few months during the slow and painful wait for the final verdict.

In the interim, more drama-trauma followed with more missed visitations. By January 2011, we were back in court, filing a motion for makeup parenting time. That was another torturous story of last-minute illness, this time involving Zion, and my decision not to have him travel if he wasn’t well. Siohvaughn contested my motion, claiming I had chosen not to have visitation. The judge would later point out that the arguments against makeup time were not in the best interests of our sons and showed evidence that their mom demonstrated either a lack of concern for their best interests or a failure to understand what their best interests were.

Of course, I didn’t know until March 11, 2011, how the judge was reviewing the case and the extent she needed to go for seeking precedent for her decision. In her 102-page judgment, she echoed everything that I believed in my heart, emphasizing that there was no question but that the boys’ mom loved them dearly and was a very good mother—but that the evidence showed that “it is her pattern of conduct that is designed to limit, restrict or simply deprive her children of a loving and devoted father that has caused such damage to this family.”

If my faith had ever faltered, it was revived, once and for all, on that day when the text came in from Jim and the full judgment was rendered.

And the new chapter could begin.

SO, HERE’S HOW I DREAM: IT’S MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012, mid-day in downtown Miami, and nearly half a million beautiful fans from South Florida and beyond have flooded the streets surrounding Biscayne Boulevard where a parade is being held in honor of none other than the Heat. In the middle of all this love and joy, along with the blasts of confetti and pulsing music, traveling down the parade route is a long line of big red open-air double-decker tour buses carrying various members of the Miami Heat family. And right up at the front of one of the buses, I’m standing there waving and pointing to the fans with one hand and holding up the NBA championship trophy in the other. Up there standing with me, taking in the incredible sights, are Zaire, Zion, and Dada, along with several members of Team Wade.

Yeah, sounds a little over the top, I admit. But by now you probably know me pretty well and you know that no one has ever accused me of dreaming small! What better ending could I have dreamed up for this story than getting to scale the heights of Mount Everest a second time and getting to share the experience with my boys? The only better ending is to let you in on the secret that this isn’t a dream at all. In fact, it’s actually unfolding in real time, right in front of millions of people around the world who are a part of this celebration, at the same time that the major events of this past year flash through my mind.

Without question, a few lifetimes have been lived since the end of the 2010/2011 season. In hindsight, I can see that once again the Heat had another updated version of highs and lows that year, with its unpredictable ebb and flow. The high was being a part of one of the most-watched, most-interesting teams to ever play together and to celebrate at the end what we were able to accomplish with LeBron, Chris, and I playing together. Another high was the fun of going through that journey with those guys and our whole roster—from being on a team where nothing mattered, to being on a team where everything mattered, unlike the indifference that preceded it. We were crazy competitive and played with the audacity of fun.

The low was tough to ignore. There had been the scrutiny, the haters, the targets on our backs, unpleasant things said and done, much of it aimed at LeBron that was painful for me to have to watch and not be able to stop. The charge that we had choked avoided the reality that the Mavericks had the edge; it was their time. And again, we went to the championship round, all the way to the finals, and we were two games away from winning in our first year together. But yes, that was another low, when we lost in the end and came away empty-handed. Just another reason to feel hungry and willing to work at the level that we did in the compressed killer of a season that 2011/2012 became—determined to learn from our mistakes and prepare for the postseason, strengthened by the knowledge gained from the pain and struggle of the past.

Off the court, in my fatherhood journey, I’ve tried especially hard this last year to apply the same principle to the goal of being able to better coparent my sons with my ex and to improve our lines of communication. Because of my faith, I will never give up on the possibility that we can write a new chapter, even after everything that has happened.

Tragil once told me a story about lessons of forgiveness that helped her. One day in church when she lived in San Diego, the pastor spoke about the weight that unforgiveness puts on your soul. He said that if you carry any unforgiveness in your heart, God won’t hear your prayers. Tragil had to clear her slate, she said, by coming to forgive Dad—who hadn’t been there for her at a time when she needed a father and who said things that hurt her deeply over the years. They have a much better relationship today, Tragil says, because she decided to forgive him, difficult though it was.

Unburdening her heart of unforgiveness has brought many other rewards, she would say. These days, she is president of Wade’s World, my foundation, which serves children, youth, and families mainly in the three states that I’ve called home—Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida. My sister is a dynamic and impassioned leader, tackling tough issues that affected our lives when we were growing up. She helps me live up to my promise to come back and try to make a difference for kids and families in underserved communities. Not surprisingly, Tragil is usually a step ahead of me, thinking all the time not of how to meet our goals but rather of how to surpass them.

Unforgiveness is not a known source for bringing blessings, that I know.

Maybe the first step to forgiving is to look in the mirror and take stock of all that you value in yourself and all that you have that leaves room for improvement. That’s always been a key for me—looking at ways I’ve grown and ways I still need to grow. My gift that I do value has been my will—the heart that lets me see good in everyone, the desire to touch and help people, and the patience that I have to do that. My gift that I’ve tried to develop is my own outlook on life. Somehow I do look at things differently than I feel others might tend to. Because of the tough tests, I’ve learned to take the hits and the hurt and then get over it fast. A lot of self-talk has been—you know, c’mon Dwyane, pull yourself together, get over it. My patience, however, comes back to bite me as well. Probably I’ve given more chances to others than I should have; maybe people have taken advantage of that. But I’ve tried to forgive myself for erring on the side of understanding that we are all imperfect human beings. And I’m on the top of that list. But I will keep on trying to get it better, and get it right.

All of that said, forgiveness requires effort like anything else.

So I sat down about six months after the custody decision came through and wrote an e-mail to Siohvaughn in the hopes of opening up the communication channels. She acknowledged receipt of it but not much else. Still, it’s a start that I share in the hopes of inspiring any fathers or mothers who want to take steps toward the goal of coparenting after a breakup:

The reason I’m writing this e-mail is because of our boys who love the both of us very much. No matter what happens or has happened, they do. So I’m writing this e-mail to ask, or to see, if the time has come when we can move on from the past and move on to the future. I want for our boys to grow up and have an opportunity in life to attack the world with all the tools needed. They will need the both of us as a big part of that. So what I’m saying is that I’ve forgiven you for anything that has been done or said and I’m asking that you do the same so that we can move forward with both of our lives. But most importantly being parents together. I know it will help a lot to communicate about things that the boys are going through in their lives—school, sports, relationships, etc.

As you know all of our lives are short and our departure time from the world isn’t one that we can choose. I say that we move on and try to at least respect who we both are today and become the parents that Zion and Zaire deserve. Even if it’s communicating through this e-mail, that’s a start. I won’t give up on you and I hope you wouldn’t give up on me. We both have grown, or are growing into the individuals that we are supposed to be. Good, bad or indifferent.

I hope all is good with you and your family. I’ll be looking forward to your response.

FORGIVENESS IS KNOWING THAT WE ARE HUMAN, IMPERFECT, and that we do make mistakes. That’s why, as an example to my children, I try to acknowledge my successes as a parent and my shortcomings. I try to know that my gifts from God are being well used. No gift has served me more than my faith—so central to the positive outlook I have on life, my ability to avoid getting into the funk that can last for years, and the belief I have in others to rise about their toughest challenges. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen people I love rise from the ashes that I’m able to hold on to faith in them finding the light in their darkness. In the end, that’s where my forgiveness of myself and of others comes from. Staying mad doesn’t make me a better father. Encouraging happiness does! Being a blessing to my own children, to my family and loved ones, and to my fellow human beings, as best I can, above all, is a blessing to me.